NASA Considers New Uses for $100 Billion Space Station

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NASA and its international partners are discussing new options
for the International Space Station, including innovative ways to
use the $100 billion orbiting laboratory as a testing ground for
technologies to help future deep space exploration.

The space station's Multilateral Coordination Board, which is
made up of representatives from the space agencies that built the
orbiting lab, examined potential technology initiatives that
could support
voyages to an asteroid or Mars, or could be used in the
development of lunar habitats.

The coordination board discussed those options in a meeting
yesterday (July 26) and also reviewed plans to ramp up use of the
station now that its 13-year construction is complete. The
officials also evaluated efforts to standardize systems and
operations at the outpost, including plans for a standard
spaceship docking system. [ Photos:
Building the International Space Station ]

The station's Multilateral Coordination Board includes senior
representatives from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the
European Space Agency, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and the
Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology. The board meets periodically to ensure coordination
of station operations and activities among the partners.

Scientific and technological research is an ongoing part of life
aboard the space station. Here are some examples of the work that
has been done, and is continuing to be done, at the orbiting
laboratory:

Using the International Space Station as a national
laboratory is expanding. Memorandums of understanding are in
place between NASA and other U.S. government agencies, such as
the National Institutes of Health, which is now in its second
year of selecting experiments for research in microgravity
related to human health.

Earlier this month, NASA formally selected the
Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, a nonprofit
organization, to stimulate, develop and manage uses of the
station by organizations other than NASA on the American segment
of the outpost.

The
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which was delivered and
installed on the station by a visiting space shuttle crew in
May, has already collected more than 2 billion observations of
galactic cosmic rays. The astrophysics instrument represents a
partnership of hundreds of scientists from sixteen countries,
led by Nobel laureate Samuel Ting.

Robotic technologies developed by the Canadian Space Agency
(CSA) for the station have been used to
improve the dexterity of surgeons on Earth in fine scale
surgery. In the coming months, NASA will be testing a humanoid
robot assistant, called Robonaut 2, that was developed in
partnership with General Motors. Furthermore, an experiment to
test the ability to robotically refuel satellites in orbit was
launched earlier this month onboard the final space shuttle
flight –
Atlantis' STS-135 mission.

The space station partnership is working to share data from
remote sensing instruments mounted on the orbiting outpost and to
increase the application of such data for use in disaster
response. For example, the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal
Ocean has collected more than 3,510 images, providing
unprecedented spectral resolution of difficult-to-map coastal
waters. The International Space Station Agricultural Camera
snapped its first pictures on June 10. Its data is used to assess
crop health and rapid changes during the growing season.

NASA's studies of their astronauts' health during long
duration stays on the station have identified relationships
between diet and bone loss that offer important insights for
ongoing and future research.

Recently published data on chemical changes in pharmaceuticals
identified that low-dose ionizing radiation in orbit degrades
many medications, indicating the need to develop more space-hardy
medications for future human spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit.

The Russian Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, continues
experiments aimed at human adaptation to future long-duration
expeditions. Effects of the flight conditions on the
cardiovascular system, the respiratory system and bones are being
investigated in a series of dedicated medical experiments. Wheat
and vegetables are being planted, followed by genetic,
microbiological and biochemical tests of the plant. Four
different long-duration Russian astrobiology experiments were
also returned after spending two years exposed to the environment
of space.

In addition to astronomical and Earth observations, Japan
promotes biotechnological research by analyzing structures of
high-quality protein crystals grown on the station that have led
to treatments for muscular dystrophy. Japan also continues
experiments related to future long-term human spaceflight
missions, such as investigating bone loss, the effects of
radiation and countermeasures of those. Scientists have also
gained insight into fields of fundamental life and materials
science from research conducted in the
Japanese Kibo laboratory.

Educational activities on the station reach thousands of
students around the world. In May and June, hundreds of thousands
of students watched the adaptation of spiders to a space
environment and compared their behavior to spiders in classrooms
on Earth through the website BioEdOnline.org. The spiders
returned to Earth on the shuttle Atlantis when it landed for the
final time on July 21.

Construction of the International Space Station began in 1998,
with five space agencies representing the 15 countries that
designed and built the orbiting lab. The station's backbone-like
main truss is as long as a football field, making it the largest
spacecraft ever built. The orbital complex consists of 13 rooms
and is typically home to a six-person crew.

With NASA's space shuttle fleet retired, the U.S. space agency
plans to rely on its international partners to deliver crews and
cargo to the space station until new privately built spaceships
become available.

Russian Soyuz spacecraft have routinely ferried astronauts and
cosmonauts to and from the space station since 2001, when the
first crew took up residence. Unmanned robot cargo ships from
Russia, Japan and Europe also make regular delivery flights to
the orbiting lab.

NASA has contracts with two
private spaceship builders, Space Exploration Technologies
(SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corp., to build and launch robot
cargo ships to ferry U.S. supplies to the space station. The
first of those flights could occur by December of this year, NASA
officials have said.

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